Shadows in the Dark

A sandbox pick-up campaign starting in the Nentir Vale

In the Vale

Orcs have entered the Nentir Vale for the first time in living human memory.

27

JUL/10

Martin Bebenspeer and Jakk met on the road while travelling to Fallcrest. Stopping to investigate three shallow graves a few days old by the side of the road – with odd, curved and fastened branches as grave markers – they searched the undergrowth to try and find what had happened. In doing so, the two were surprised by an Orc patrol. Seriously outmatched, Jakk and Martin narrowly escaped with their lives.

In Fallcrest, the pair took rooms at the Nentir Inn, across the river and outside the walls of Fallcrest proper. The news that Orcs had been sighted in the Vale for the first time in almost a hundred years led to Lord Warden Faren Markelhay himself taking an interest. Martin’s – shall we say enhanced – tales of how the two of them slew half a dozen Orcs before being forced to retreat no doubt re-inforced in his mind the threat, and he was happy to put a force of half a dozen warriors from the Fallcrest Town Guard under their command to find out more about the orcish threat.

Ordering their guard to hold back for the moment, Martin and Jakk engaged the orcs. A hard battle ensued, but they were victorious – at the cost of two lives. Martin’s words of inspiration and courage brought Anita Graylock back from death’s door – but were not able to revive her colleague John Rayston.

The body was returned to the temple of Erathis in Fallcrest, where Dirina Mornbrow attempted a ritual to return John to life. All those present at his death stood around the altar and tried to remember him at his best. The ritual failed, however, and the townspeople began their second, true, mourning for the dead.